Boycott

It always comes back to freedom of speech.

This week the Israeli Knesset signed into law a bill that effectively criminalizes calling for and/or encouraging a boycott of  Israeli goods and companies just for being associated with Israel. The law allows Israeli companies (or individuals) who could potentially suffer a financial loss from an organized boycott to sue and receive damages.

Just to be clear, the law does not prohibit all boycotts – it is still entirely legitimate (and encouraged?) to participate in and call for a boycott of cottage cheese. In addition, the law cannot prohibit an individual from making a personal and private choice not to buy certain products because they are Israeli (although it seems like that would be quite a feat for a resident of Israeli to pull off – more on this in a minute) as long as he does not make a public plea for others to join him.

As far as I know, not many Israelis are calling to boycott all Israeli products.  I’m pretty sure they couldn’t do so and continue living in this country in good conscience. I’m also pretty sure that the law can’t sanction suing residents of other countries who call for boycotting Israeli goods. Therefore, the law is clearly there to protect residents of and companies located in the West Bank. The law is obviously directed at individuals and NGO’s on the Left who call for a boycott of goods originating from Jewish sources over the Green Line.

I suppose that there is a legitimate concern that, if enough people participate in a boycott, these companies and individuals will lose money and their image will suffer for it. However, I don’t believe that  an anti-boycott bill is the most effective way of preventing boycotts. As much as I disagree with their goals, I believe that calling for and participating in a boycott should remain within the realm of freedom of speech. Moreover, I’m not convinced that the number of people participating in boycotts are enough to cause such significant losses to these companies revenues that the government has to intervene. Either way, businesses should be prepared for fluctuations in their profits. A profitable company should be structured in such a way that it fosters creativity, innovation and efficiency. If it suffers losses because of a boycott, perhaps it’s time to market new products or focus on different sectors of the population etc.

It’s evident that the framers of this law saw this as an opportunity to intervene on political grounds. This is another attempt by the Right to silence the Left through legislation. To me it says, “we are out of ideas.” Where is the hard work that is necessary to debate the Left in the coffee shop discussions, academia, and the media? That those on the Right seem so insecure about their own ideology that they resort to pitiful attempts at silencing the Left is alarming. (It would serve them – the Right – right if individuals who sport t-shirts declaring that they only buy from Jews were sued as well.)

The framers of the bill defend themselves by noting that the US has the American Export Administration Act which incidentally helped serve as the basis for their bill. Either they don’t understand the Act or they are trying to pull a fast one (I’m not sure which is worse…). I imagine that the reason the AEAA is mentioned in the bill is because the Act specifically mentions protecting Israel from the Arab League Boycott. The difference is that there is no American law which prohibits calling for and publicly participating in a boycott of American products or companies. Boycotts are a legitimate form of political and economic expression. The goal of the AEAA is not to silence political expression, rather it is meant to ensure that American companies do not become tools of an enemy nation’s foreign policy.

The fight for this bill is not over and I hope that the Supreme Court overturns it. I will conclude with a question but be sure to stay tuned for more legislation aimed at silencing the Left.

Where is the line between a boycott and ideological discrimination?